Two election commissioners wrote to the Cabinet Secretary requesting action against Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg, who was given additional charge and made changes in work allocation without consultation. However, the Cabinet Secretariat did not initiate action due to concerns about executive interference.
According to documents accessed under the Right to Information Act, two election commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, wrote separate letters to Cabinet Secretary TV Somanathan on July 29, seeking action against Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg. Garg was given additional charge of the poll panel’s administration division on July 28 while Deputy Election Commissioner Bhanu Prakash Yeturu was on leave from July 27 to August 9.
Within hours of taking charge, Garg issued an order changing the work assigned to senior deputy election commissioners, deputy election commissioners, director generals and other officers. Sandhu and Joshi alleged that Garg made these changes without consulting the Election Commission or the officers concerned, despite repeated verbal and written instructions that such changes required ‘prior discussion or approval’ from the poll panel.
Sandhu said that the revised allocation had been issued ‘without discussing or informing’ the commission or him, while Joshi wrote that when he ‘requested for the relevant file from the administration division, it was not provided’. Both commissioners alleged that Garg’s actions were contrary to established practice and violated provisions of the 2023 Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act.
The Cabinet Secretariat noted that taking action without an official communication from the poll panel as a whole could be ‘inappropriate’ and ‘construed as interference in the functioning of the constitutional body’. Instead, copies of the complaints were sent to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar's office. It is unclear whether Kumar responded to the proposed request for his opinion.
On August 5, Somanathan sent separate letters to Sandhu and Joshi acknowledging their complaints.
Source:
Scroll.in
